Academician Petar S. Jovanovic: Founder and the first director of Geographical Institute of the SASA

Academician Petar S. Jovanović (born in 1893) was a founder (31 May 1947) and the first director of the Institute of Geography SAS (up to 15 November 1957), which he led (10 years) until his death. During that period, he organized the scientific research with a larger number of high-quality researchers that he brought to the Institute and achieved very significant scientific results with them. The establishment and successful management of the Institute of Geography of SAS is a remarkable contribution of Jovanović to the creation of conditions for scientific work, that is, faster development of geographical science in the country. This is the most important part of his personal success, since due to premature death - despite the large number of published papers - he did not have time to show all of his intellectual potentials and wealth of experience of scholars. Jovanović based Geographical Institute SAS on the settings of Cvijić’s geographical school, whose traditions with certain extensions have been preserved until today. This suggests that the geography of Serbia has independently been studied 120 years, that is, from the birth of Petar S. Jovanović (in 1893), when Cvijić founded Geographical Institute at the Belgrade University. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. III47007